"Chrono Trigger basically began as a jam session — a couple of star designers and a manga artist getting together to brainstorm and seeing what they might produce. No pressure. No cynicism. No stockholders wringing their hands over whether having so-and-so as a hero instead of such-and-such might have a negative impact on profitability, or insisting the graphics and story be changed midway through development to fit into an already-existing series rather than taking a chance on a new franchise."

Chrono Trigger is a RPG for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System; it was developed by Squaresoft in conjunction with several members of then-rival Enix and released in 1995. The game tells the story of Crono, a Heroic Mime who meets a young girl named Marle at his hometown's Millennial Fair, a festival thrown to celebrate the dawn of the year 1000 AD. When a teleportation device made by Crono's best friend, Lucca, goes out of control and sends Marle four hundred years into the past, Crono jumps in after her, kicking off an adventure throughout time that will span millions of years.

Square followed up Chrono Trigger with two sequels. The first, Radical Dreamers for the SNES, has not seen the light of day outside of Japan, though a translated ROM is available online. The second, Chrono Cross for the PlayStation, incorporates parts of Radical Dreamers. Chrono Trigger itself has a PS1 port that adds a number of brief anime cutscenes and a few plot modifications to get it in sync with the then-still-in-development Chrono Cross. Square Enix published a long-awaited Updated Re-release in late 2008 for the Nintendo DS; this re-release retained the good parts of the PS1 port, re-translated the script to overcome the hurdles of both censorship and memory limitations present in the mid-1990s, and threw in some bonus dungeons and a new ending for good measure.note This port also saw a European release in 2009. Since then, it has seen releases on Apple's iOS platform in 2011, Android in 2012, and Steam in 2018.

Please read before viewing:this page contains numerous spoilers from Chrono Cross, which are not labeled as such outside of the spoiler markers, so read carefully from this point forward if you don't want to have Chrono Cross spoiled. Please try to mark any spoilers involving Chrono Cross if you hide a spoiler from that game.

Chrono Trigger has contained, does contain, and will contain the following tropes:

Abandoned Laboratory: The Keeper's Dome. You can visit it on your first trip to the future, when Belthasar is still alive, but you won't get far.

Absurdly High Level Cap: The maximum level is 99 (**). You have to grind a lot to reach it, and the best place to do this requires you to exploit the respawning of a group of enemies in a dungeon.

Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Abandoned Sewers runs between two continents; Krawlie runs the show down here, but he's a pushover.

Abusive Precursors: Lavos manipulated the evolution of life on the planet as a form of energy harvesting.

Action Commands: One minigame, and a few tasks in the factory stages, require button input sequences in a certain amount of time.

Actually, I Am Him: "The Guru of Time... I believe that's what they used to call me... ages ago..."

Adaptive Ability: Golems and Jugglers have either high magic defense and low physical defense or the opposite at any given time, and switch depending on the last attack they received.

Advanced Ancient Acropolis: The Black Omen, depending on when one visits it (600 AD-2300 AD); having tech far in advance of everything else, despite being 12,600-14,300 years older. It used to be the Ocean Palace of Zeal which had antigravity, central heating, laser guns, and airplanes in a time when everyone else lived like cavemen.

After the End: The sucky future is what inspires the heroes to meddle with the timeline.

Air-Vent Passageway: When the Kingdom of Zeal is demolished, Dalton flees inside the Blackbird and tries flexing his muscle over the remaining refugees. Shortly after waking up in the Last Village, the party is rounded up and taken to the airship, with their gear stolen. You can reclaim your belongings by climbing through the ventilation system.

All Cavemen Were Neanderthals: Averted. While the people in prehistory are rather simple-minded compared to later time periods, they aren't stupid or completely primitive; they're already showing the signs of a somewhat early form of currency and trade, for starters. Ayla in particular exemplifies the "simple but not stupid" statement above. Not to mention that the weapons and armor you can buy from them are stronger than the armor you come in with.

All the Worlds Are a Stage: Lavos's first form is battled on a weird rippling blue surface, while his final form is confronted on a trippy hyperspace-like background that has terrain from past levels randomly appear on it. You're probably in temporal freefall at that point. Lavos' attacks vary depending on the background.

Alternate World Map: Drastic changes in continent arrangement take place over mere thousands of years. Not too surprising, considering the Eldritch Abomination lurking underground causing all kinds of earthquakes, Floating Continents that come crashing down, and an apocalyptic event that encases the world in continuous winter for centuries after. The only time periods that don't involve some kind of major cataclysm between them — 600 to 1000 to 1999 — all share the same continental layout.

Amoral Attorney: The fake Chancellor functions as one: bribing witnesses, twisting the facts, summarily executing people who are found not guilty, etc. Pierre, the actual lawyer, is the one trying to help you.

Anachronism Stew: At least in the SNES version: Dalton uses the iconic phrase "We have lift-off, Houston!!" as he engages the modified Epoch for the first time. In the Chrono Triggeruniverse, there is no such place as Houston, but then, Dalton has an awareness of the fourth wall.

And Man Grew Proud: The destruction of Zeal. This probably set the species back 16,000 years.

Just after getting Frog and going to storm the Fiendlord's Keep, Frog will ask if you're using magic, even if you didn't use it in battle, with the game throwing down a none-too-subtle hint that you should bring Frog to Spekkio to have Frog learn his own magic. Since the dungeon ahead requires exploiting elemental weaknesses, and Frog is a required member of your party until you clear it, you're going to need him to know those spells.

In 65,000,000 BC, Crono has to win the Dreamstone from Ayla by beating her in a drinking contest with prehistoric alcohol.note Which was Bowdlerized in the SNES version to be an eating contest with "soup". To do this, the player has to rapidly press a button. Failing enough times will cause Ayla to say that she can't drink anymore, so Crono wins by default.

The citizens of Arris Dome don't care what you found in their basement, or that you risked your life down there. They're all starving, so unless you are bringing them food, they don't care what you are or what you did.

The residents of Zeal would rather bask in their own luxury than be concerned about messing with questionable energy sources, or even about the simple idea that "what goes up must come down."

The NPCs' blasé attitudes towards the Black Omen are justifiable, as it has been there as long as they can remember, and hasn't caused anyone any trouble.

Apocalypse How: One inevitable Class 2, and the arrival of Lavos is probably a Class 1, all things considered. The ruined world of 2300 AD is the result of a second Class 2, working its way up to Class 4. This doesn't even factor the Time Devourer.

The Masamune turns out to be forged with the Dreamstone along with enchantment by the wind spirits Masa and Mune.

The eponymous Chrono Trigger or "Time Egg," as well as anything involving Dreamstone or time travel technology.

Arbitrary Head Count Limit: Your party cannot have more than three people in it at a time. This is "justified" in-game that groups larger than three cannot make it through the time warp without being spit into the End of Time, and they only have a single Gate Key. Once they find the three seater Epoch time machine, their destination is a time period which can't be accessed with the Gate Key. Afterwards, there are multiple instances where the entire party is present in an area other than the End of Time, but the game mechanics remain unchanged as to how many can fight together.

Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: After you save the world, Crono wakes up in his bed and is awakened by a royal guardsman, who tells him that his stay of execution has expired and now his sentence will be carried out. Crono is brought before King Guardia XXXIII, with Marle begging for her boyfriend's life...only for the King to reveal he knows all about what's happened. Various Character Witnesses from across time appear to vouch for your story, and Lucca then presents herself brandishing the Gate Key. The King tells you that instead of being executed, he's going to throw you a grand parade on the last night of the Millennial Fair.

Played very straight with Marle, a.k.a. Princess Nadia. The name Marle is a pseudonym apparently invented on the spot as part of her princess incognito get-up and is quickly discovered as such, yet she answers to it as if it were her given name.

Likewise played straight by Frog. Even after proudly stating, "Mine name is Glenn!", he goes right back to answering to Frog or whatever else the player has named him.

During the Rainbow Shell quest, it seems really strange to be fighting Nagas and Vipers, enemies that appeared in the 600 A.D. Cathedral at the very beginning of the game. That is until you fight the boss, Yakra XIII, who is the descendant of the boss of the Cathedral.

Giant's Claw, the area where you find the Rainbow Shell, has enemies otherwise seen only in the prehistoric era. Like the above, this is because the area is the ruins of the Tyranno Lair.

Ayla. Easily justifiable in her prehistoric culture; she explains that the strongest person in the tribe gets to be chief, be they man, woman, or child.

How Magus, a small, timid 10-year-old human boy, becomes the undisputed ruler of a horde of barbaric demons.

Attack of the Town Festival: The Millennial Fair in 1000 AD is never attacked, but the festival in 65,000,000 B.C. gets ransacked by Reptites while everybody slept.

Autobots, Rock Out!: The standard boss theme will certainly get the blood pumping. "World Revolution", and "Lavos Core" are even more grandiose.

Autodoc: In the ruined future, there's a machine called an Enertron which heals all your wounds and can sustain your life, but still leaves you as hungry as you were when you stepped inside.note Which explains why there's still people around in a future that has literally no food.

Automatic New Game: If there's no save data, it goes straight into the action/wait options and then begins the games opening cinematics.

Crono's Shiva Edge, which is received in the Hero's Grave (present) after powering it up in the past, does four times the damage when it has a critical hit. However, it's impractical because its critical hit rate is one of the lowest in the game, a mere 7%.

Lucca's Wondershot deals random amounts of damage.note The remake clarifies that playtime plays a role in determining the random damage. While it has the potential to be devastating, it is equally likely to make you switch to another weapon.

The damage for Robo's Crisis Arm is based on the last digit of his HP. If it's a 9, he deals a large amount of damage. If it's a 0? No damage at all.

The New Game + comes with a catch: Frog's upgraded Masamune disappears from your inventory, as it's a plot-relevant weapon. Needless to say, when you get it back, it's reduced to a paltry 75 attack stat.

The Accessory-induced Triple Techs, as one character in the party will have to sacrifice an inventory slot in order to use them.

Triple techs in general become this once you get to a high enough level. The maximum amount of damage a single attack can inflict is 9,999, and by the time you reach the 50s, many characters will be able to inflict enough damage in a single attack to kill most enemies anyway, and some will have full-screen attacks that can rival some of the triple techs, too. Eventually, having each character execute a powerful attack on their own becomes more effective than having all three combine for a single attack.

Awful Truth: Bringing Lucca, Robo, or Magus to the final fight with Lavos yields this shocking fact: every living being on the planet has been shaped and cultivated by Lavos, who harvests their genetic material to evolve. Lavos then sends its spawn into space to repeat the cycle.

A Winner Is You: Averted in all endings save one: beat Lavos immediately after arriving in the End of Time, and all that will happen is the screen will fade to black while a Nu, a Kilwala, and a frog play around while the credits roll. That's it: no character interactions, no ramifications to the timeline, nothing.

There's a section of the Fiendlord's Keep where the normal battle music is overriden by the minimalist dungeon music, and nearly every sound has an echo effect added to it.

The Ocean Palace dungeon is probably one of the most memorable instances of this. The game double dips by replaying the Ocean Palace BGM during King Guardia XXXIII's trial, adding a sense of urgency to Marle's efforts to clear him.

Giant's Claw does it as well.

Bring Magus to the boss battle against Zeal; he'll banter with Zeal for a bit before the fight, where his theme replaces the more bombastic Boss Battle 2 theme.

The heartbeat inside of Lavos overrides even the party switching menu's music.

Bad Present: The Successor of Guardia ending, which can be interpreted as either hilarious or horrifying. A grainy film projector shows Queen Leene walking down the aisle with Frog, turning Marle's family line into a weird bunch of frog hybrids.

Bait-and-Switch: Lara, Lucca's mother, sits in a chair all day because her legs were crushed many years ago. You can choose to Set Right What Once Went Wrong and save her in the past. If you do, and return to the present to see her, she'll remain seated in the same chair, implying that You Can't Fight Fate until she stands up and starts walking around.

Balloonacy: This happens in the Reunion and Beyond Time endings if you wrecked the Epoch. In the former, Marle gets carried away, while in the latter, it's Crono and Marle.

Big Damn Heroes: Lucca shows up to break Crono out of jail shortly before he's due to be executed. If you choose not to escape, she saves the day. If you do, she's still a big help.

Big Fancy Castle: Guardia Castle, Fiendlord's Keep, and Zeal Palace. Each one grander than the last.

Big "NO!": Marle's reaction after she watches the Day of Lavos recording leading to her idea to stop it. This is also her reaction upon discovering she's now part-frog in The Successor of Guardia ending.

The Successor of Guardia ending. Thanks to Frog marrying Leene while still in his frog form, everyone in the present day royal family is now a half-human, half-frog hybrid. This includes Marle, much to her chagrin.

The Legendary Hero ending flashes back to the showdown at the Fiendlord's Keep, except this time, Frog is replaced with the diminutive Tata. In addition, Crono is now standing in for Magus, complete with Marle and Lucca as his molls.

In the Dino Age ending, life goes on for the subjects of Guardia except they're all Reptiles, Planet of the Apes-style.

The blue-tinted melancholy of 600 A.D. This era is most similar to the present in terms of continents and town placement, but the skies are overcast with mist and the theme music ("Yearnings of the Wind") can be best described as "pensive". This is a kingdom which is preparing to be snuffed out at any moment.

Bonsai Forest: Those dense forests you see on the map appear to be made of very short trees when you're actually in them. It could be viewed as a graphical convention to go with the isometric perspective, of course.

One for each playable character, except Ayla.note They wanted to include an optional dungeon for her, but ultimately could not fit it in. Some are added in the Updated Re-release, namely the bosses in the Dimensional Vortexes and the Dream Devourer.

Spekkio counts, since you're never required to defeat him. Which is good, as many players consider his final form to be harder than the Final Boss. This is due to his tendency of spamming Hallation and then immediately follow it up with Luminaire or Dark Matter, frequently resulting in a Total Party Kill.

In an unusual example, the Black Omen is both this and the final dungeon. On one hand, it wraps up Zeal's arc and leads directly into the final battle against Lavos. On the other hand, you have two alternate methods of fighting Lavos without stepping foot onto the Black Omen, and leaving the dungeon unfinished doesn't affect the ending at all. And all the best gear is gotten outside of it. So really you only need to take on the dungeon if you just want to see everything the game has to offer.

The remake features the Lost Sanctum and the Dimensional Vortexes.

Boss Bonanza: The Black Omen, where you fight: Mega Mutant, Giga Mutant, Tera Mutant, Elder Lavos Spawn, Queen Zeal first form, Mammon Machine, and Queen Zeal second form. After that, you are automatically rocketed out of the Black Omen to fight yet another Boss Rush against Lavos – the very Boss Rush that starts the final fight against Lavos.

Aside from the literal case of Zenan Bridge in 600 AD, trying to cross Site 32 before investigating Arris Dome will trigger a never-ending loop of Random Encounters until you give up and go somewhere else.

Call-Back: Janus' first words to you mention "the black winds [howling]", indicating that he will grow up to become Magus.

The Call Has Bad Reception: King Guardia XXI sits out the game's second act, having been struck in the back by an arrow while leading his men against Magus. The bedridden King puts all of his hope into "the Hero" to find the Masamune. While it's obvious that the Hero is Frog, the player must endure every NPC proclaiming Tata the kingdom's savior. He gets as far as the Denadoro Mountains before fleeing in terror. This whole farce is a nice inversion of the Holy Grail myth, with Tata being the would-be Galahad.

Marle tries, but she Cannot Spit It Out. By the time she gets a chance to talk to her father again, she's got a better grasp of the situation and hugs him instead.

If Magus is present for the fight with Queen Zeal, he'll tell her exactly why she's pathetic, then resolve to kill her out of mercy. This is notable in that she has no clue that he's actually her son.

Campfire Character Exploration: During the Fiona's Forest sidequest, leaving Robo in the past to plant a forest ends with the party around a campfire. There's little they talk about, but it ends up with Lucca discovering a gate to the past to the day her mother lost her legs. If the player is quick enough, Lucca can save her mother, restoring her legs in the present. Robo then comes up to her and comforts her whether or not she succeeded, and gives her an item he made.

Candlelit Ritual: Magus's rite to summon Lavos involves a series of braziers burning blue flame surrounding his circle and the path leading to it. The flames light automatically as the party approaches.

Canon Discontinuity: Radical Dreamers, the first sequel, was replaced by Chrono Cross, which significantly expanded upon and changed certain things, such as the fates of Magus and Schala. However, a Chronopolis computer in Cross implies that the events of Radical Dreamers happened in an Alternate Universe.

Can't Drop the Hero: Played straight up until the end of the Ocean Palace, when Crono is killed by Lavos. Getting him back afterwards is completely optional, and even if you do, from that point on he can be switched out with other characters.

Capture and Replicate: Yakra VIII captures the Chancellor and poses as him mainly to serve as an Obstructive Bureaucrat in his aim to destabilize the kingdom. You can expose and kill him and free the real Chancellor during the Rainbow Shell subquest.

Guardia Castle's security really isn't the best. When Crono is jailed at the beginning, you either trick the guards to escape, or Lucca will bust in and take out most of the guards. Even if you stay put, there is a hole leading to the adjacent cell, and from there a gaping hole leading outside. In fact, the most valuable chests are accessible via a giant network of loose stones and holes in the walls.

The Blackbird's brig isn't much of an improvement. You can fake an illness to get the guards to come in, setting up a sneak attack from your team, or you can pull an Air Vent Escape through a completely unprotected vent in the ceiling.

The Champion: What Cyrus is to Queen Leene and Glenn, particularly when he was younger. Frog later takes up this role towards the Queen.

Character Select Forcing: Most of the game requires Crono to be at the front of the party. Robo, Frog, and Ayla also need to come along for a few dungeons during the plot, and while you're in the Blackbird, you can't switch characters at all.

Character Witness: During Crono's trial, how you acted during the Millennial Fair will determine your verdict. Later, during the King's trial, the Chancellor learns his lesson and instead calls forward his own cronies, who have been paid to testify falsely.

Various seemingly insignificant things you can do at the Millennial Fair, such as eating the lunch you find near Gato's arena, bringing back the little girl's cat, and trying to walk off before Marle finishes buying candy, will work for or against you when you're put on trial for allegedly kidnapping Princess Nadia.

Melchior manages to pull it off twice. At first, he seems like a mere merchant, but then it's revealed that he's the only swordsmith with the skills to repair the Masamune. Then, still later, it's revealed that he's one of the time-displaced Gurus.

The old man at the End of Time turns out to be another one of the Gurus. And he gives you the Chrono Trigger egg to resurrect Crono after his death.

The seemingly insane old man in the ruined future also turns out to be one of the Gurus. You can't actually meet him again, but he installs his mind into a Nu and in that guise, gives the party the Wings of Time. This area is completely optional when you first visit the future though.

In a horrifying inversion, the game does this to you via the Nu. In battle, Nu will either deal ((Current HP) - 1) damage or 1 damage. So be prepared to be hilariously and humiliatingly killed by taking 1 damage while having only 1 HP. Thankfully, there's a modicum of fairness in this skillset, as there are actually two kinds of Nus: one deals ((Current HP) - 1), the other 1, and they don't coordinate their attacks.

Several of the end-game bosses and enemies have the ability to do this to you. Especially humiliating and noticeable if you're over-leveled, since most of their attacks would do scratch damage to you. Zeal's second form in particular is rather annoying, because hitting her with an Area of Effect attack will result in her casting ((Current HP) - 1) and MP Buster on you, leaving your character with only 1 HP and nothing else. She usually follows this up with a life drain spell.

Chest Monster: The unnamed enemies in the Fiendlord's Keep that are indistinguishable from Save Points until you touch them.

Chokepoint Geography: Zenan Bridge (intact in the present, destroyed in the past), Sites 16 and 32, and the Fiendlord's Keep.

Combination Attack: Every combination of two characters (minus Magus) has three Double Techs they can perform together once they have the appropriate skills (a spin slash and a flame thrower make a burning spin slash, for example). And every combination of Crono and two other characters (plus a few other trios that require special accessories) can do a Triple Tech, although you probably won't use those that often.

Cognizant Limbs: A good portion of the bosses have multiple parts, such as: a head and two hands; a body and legs; a large main body and two bits; or a head, a wheel, and a body. Since these require many different strategies, it probably contributed to the lasting appeal of the game.

You're visiting the same places, having survived millions of years. Though credulity is strained when an area that suffers a massive meteor impact gets reused in a later era under the pretense of being "pushed underground" in the incident.

The inner workings of Lavos share the same textures as the mountain regions in the game.

The first half of each Dimensional Vortex consists of screens from various times and places (and appropriately weak enemies) seen previously, with the second half being unique.

Copy Protection: In the SNES version, if the game detects that its running on a cartridge copier, the first Gate animation will loop endlessly. This was recycled for the remake, though the detection method is obviously not the same.

Corridor Cubbyhole Run: Death Peak. And earlier, in the Guardia prison: you can hide in cutouts to sneak up on the guards and cosh them, instead of fighting.

Counter Attack: Equip the Rage Band or Wrath Band accessories. Some enemies also have their own counters, while bosses occasionally enter Counter Attack phases you can wait out due to the active combat system.

Coup de Grâce Cutscene: The Dragon Tank doesn't just vanish like most enemies. After you've defeated it in normal battle, it triggers a sequence where Crono takes a flying leap to the top of the machine and plunges in his katana for the final blow. This causes the whole bridge to explode.

Pretty much everything about the cover, which was based on the beta version of the game, is wrong. A pink-garbed Marle is shooting a fireball (even though she has water-based powers) to complete the Arc Impulse triple tech with Crono (wearing a cape) and Frog against the Heckran (can't even be fought when Frog is in your party) in a snowfield (while the Heckran lives in a cave). A Bonus Dungeon in the remake allows you to legitimately do what the cover shows, because you go to another snowy mountain area, where a Heckran-like monster lives. However, it's a snowbeast, so using the Ice-elemental Arc Impulse on him is a hilariously bad idea.

One of the scenes depicted in the manual (Crono sleeping, Frog tripping, Lucca repairing Robo, and Marle bringing tea) happens in The Oath ending, which is non-canon.

Ayla is often seen with a large wooden club in her artwork even though she never uses such a weapon in-game.

Crapsack World: The Future. Not only are the last few remaining humans starving to death in decaying ruins, but mutants pounce on anyone traveling between shelters, and robots are systematically hunting down humans in order to recycle them in factories.

Crash-Into Hello: Marle. It's best to talk to her first, then pick up her dropped necklace.

Crater Power: After a fashion. Lavos demonstrates its might by slamming into the Tyranno Lair, leveling the entire plateau and replacing it with a charred crater.

Fiendlord's Keep contains several giggling children of the Obviously Evil variety. They turn into ghosts.

Janus. He sullenly ignores your party, only to suddenly state "The black winds howl. One among you will shortly perish."

The Cretaceous Is Always Doomed: It doesn't happen overnight, but Lavos' arrival eventually causes an Ice Age which lasts over sixty million years. The Enlightened Ones use magic to habitate the sky, above the never-ending blizzard, but the collapse of Zeal results in the destruction of that civilization.

Critical Hit: Complete with a more vicious attack animation for all characters. They're a core element of late game, as well, with the availability of weapons with high crit chance and the potential to increase it with certain items.

Ayla (and in the remake, Robo) eventually get the ability to do 9999 damage on a critical hit. Combined with luck-enhancing equipment, can reach Game-Breaker levels.

Crono's ultimate weapon(s) give him a huge critical hit rate, to the point that he pretty much only does double damage from then on.

Marle's Venus Bow sort of makes her one, as she deals 777 damage to everything, no matter their defense.

Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Dalton. On the few occasions he actually stops swaggering and posturing, he proves to be an incredibly powerful magician. Powerful enough to cause the fall of the Kingdom of Guardia.

Crystal Prison: Exiling the Guru of Life to a mountainous wasteland wasn't enough for Queen Zeal. She also imprisoned him in a crystal on the highest peak.

Cursed with Awesome: Frog, cursed with his eponymous form, gains the ability to jump absurdly high distances and use his tongue as a grappling hook and healing implement. In fact, he delivers a Take That! to Magus during their first battle, telling him that he actually enjoys his new form now.

Cute Monster Girl: The Nagas according to the old man NPC who wants the Naga Bromide.

The Masamune's power. The sword is capable of cutting a cliff in half.

Practically everything Magus does before he joins the party. With enough grinding you can eventually get him back to his former power level and have fun spamming Dark Matter on everything you see.

Dalton. He's such a wimp in his boss fights, and yet on two different occasions, he nullifies the entire party with a flick of his wrist.note Once in Queen Zeal's throne room, when after the party beats the Golem, he imprisons them in a forcefield, the second just after the fall of Zeal when he knocks them out with fireballs.

Darkest Hour: After the Fall of Zeal. Crono is dead, obliterated by Lavos, who knocked out your party with one attack and destroyed Zeal. Schala used her powers to teleport the rest of the party out of danger, but was caught in the Ocean Palace as it caved in. You've lost the Epoch, the time gate out of 12,000 BC is still sealed (and without Schala, there's no way to break the seal), the remnants of Zeal's army, led by Dalton, are trying to conquer what little remains, and the closest thing you have to an ally is someone you've been trying to kill for a large portion of the game. Things get better, but for a while it looks pretty dire.

Deader Than Dead: Crono, after being disintegrated by Lavos. Of course, since the game is about time travel, "dead" and "gone" are not the same thing.

Decade Dissonance: The Kingdom of Zeal and the earthbound existing in the dark ages side by side. The non-magic using Earthbound were forced to live on the surface by the people of Zeal, where they have to scrape out a living for themselves in the wilderness. A comment from an NPC in the Earthbound Village implies that things weren't always this way, but at the time of the game, only Schala and the Gurus treat the Earthbound Ones as equals.

The Master Mune Triple Tech requires your whole party to be at low HP to inflict maximum damage. What makes this technique the epitome of Awesome, but Impractical, however, is that the party required to use this technique is Marle, Robo, and Frog, meaning that if you can dish out maximum damage with this technique, Frog Squash is already primed to do the same, and the other two should be getting your party back on its feet.

One of the treasures gained from the Geno Dome sidequest is the Crisis Arm, which has a similar effect listed. However, a glitch means that the weapon only reads the last digit of Robo's HP, meaning it does the same damage at 999 HP as at 9 HP. The remake keeps the bug and gives the weapon a description that makes this more explicit.

Detectives Follow Footprints: Happens when your Gate Key is stolen by Reptites. The section of the game is even called "Footsteps! Follow!".

Deus Exit Machina: Crono gets nuked by Lavos, leaving the rest of the party to save the world without him. He can be saved via Tricked Out Time, but this is optional.

Items which exist over multiple time periods obey causality.note Relative to themselves, at least; your intervention is another story. If you take an object from the past, it won't be there in the future, but the same item can be obtained twice by taking the one in the future first.note The game gives you a bit of a warning about this: if you try to take the item in the past, you'll get a confirmation message, whereas if you take it in the future, you just grab it.

Frog has an ability called Slurp Slash, where he grabs the enemy with his tongue, drags them to him, and slashes them, knocking them back to their starting point. If you try it on a stationary object, like the winches in the fight against Ozzie, Frog will instead pull himself to the object, crashing into it and still dealing a chunk of damage.

In the Blackbird, your party is stripped of their gear, and taken prisoner. Ignoring, of course, the world shattering magic the characters possess, you are rendered helpless and have to resort to stealth to continue to get your gear back. However, Ayla has been ripping things apart with her bare hands until this point, and will be more than happy to continue to do so if she is in your party, though she does lack armor and therefore takes more damage as a result.

If you try and take on the Black Omen in 2300 A.D., Queen Zeal will actually come out and mock the party for failing to remember that the apocalypse already happened and attacking the Omen now would be pointless.

The Black Omen obeys the same laws as items. It ceases to exist after you defeat it, but only in time periods further ahead. The Omen can, in fact, be explored three times, allowing three times the Charmed loot off of Zeal.note However, other than the fight against Zeal, all one-time-only events in the Omen remain completed when you go back in time, including bosses fought and Inexplicable Treasure Chests opened.

Developer's Room: The ending you get if you defeat Lavos at the first possible chance in a New Game+, or in the Hopeless Boss Fight encounter. After you satisfy yourself chatting with the game's developers, one of them will give you the appropriate reward for someone who beat the game so quickly — a hyperspeed credit roll.

Lavos' origins remain a mystery, and some of its powers are fairly inexplicable.

The Black Omen, a UFO powered by the equally-cryptic Mammon Machine, is somehow cobbled together from the remains of the Ocean Palace.

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Crono and his friends discover an ancient, city-sized alien that has leeched genetic progress from and plans to destroy all civilization. Their response is to begin Level Grinding until they are of sufficient power to stab it in the face.note They are intelligent about it. After seeing the power of Lavos at his strongest, they decide to attack it at its weakest, and try to get it before it can leech godly amounts of power from the planet. They just get the wrong era, and then can't actually attack it in the proper era. It's at that point that they decide to stop it in any way possible, out of necessity. Or bludgeon it to death with a mop... and the game's 13 different endings actually encourage you to travel through time to defeat it at as many points in time as possible.

Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Mainly the Black Tyranno boss, but other dinosaur-type creatures also have fire-breathing capabilities.

Disaster Democracy: With Zeal blown to bits and 90% of the planet's surface now underwater, the surviving Enlightened Ones have no choice but to throw in with the Earthbound Ones, who know better how to survive in the icy climate. The propagation of the races ends up diluting man's ability to wield magic, but at least their moral sense has changed for the better.

The original game freely gave you them if you were just willing to grind for it. Right from the start, Crono can buy a Silver Sword from Melchior — the best available sword for the first three story arcs. And right after that, when you arrive in Medina Village, there are overpriced items that are strong enough to take on the end boss of the game. Usually, you wouldn't be able to afford it, but enemies in the Abandoned Sewers of 2300 AD drop obscene amounts of money.

Items formerly unavailable until the endgame can be earned in the DS exclusive Arena of the Ages if you're patient enough.

Do Not Go Gentle: All player characters bar Crono have a short one of these before the final confrontation with Lavos:

Frog:(SNES translation) My life retain'eth its meaning!

Domed Hometown: 1999 AD and 2300 AD feature cities enclosed in domes or made of domes.

Dragon Ascendant: Ozzie goes underground after Magus disappears and, for all intents and purposes, assumes control of his forces. Later, you can break into his fort and kill him, which pacifies his descendants in 1000 AD.

Dual-World Gameplay: More than two, actually. The world is always the same, but you travel through multiple different eras.

Dub Name Change: Frog's signature weapon, the Masamune. Should come as no surprise that a Western knight sword is wrongly named after a famous Eastern katana. In the Japanese version, it's named Grandleon, which makes more sense.

Frog versus Magus at the North Cape, if you bring him to the confrontation, and Robo and Atropos at the Geno Dome. Both are optional.

It's possible to face Lavos with only Crono in the New Game+. This is required for one of the endings.

The Dulcinea Effect: When Marle's sucked into the time portal at the beginning, Crono jumps in headfirst to save her even though they only met a few minutes before, though this is more due to Crono's inherent heroism than anything she'd said or done.

Dying as Yourself: Before dying, Atropos briefly shakes off Mother Brain's control over her systems.

Crono and company first embark on the (comparatively) simple task of retrieving Marle. Rather than receiving a medal for his heroism, Crono's reward is a death sentence, so the party haphazardly flees into a random Time Gate, uncertain of whether they can ever return. It ends up depositing them in the Future and that's when Lavos enters stage right.

Easily Forgiven: Although Magus is the main antagonist for most of the game, he can join your party if the player chooses to let him. If he joins, none of his past misdeeds are brought up by the other characters for the rest of the game.

An Economy Is You: Highlighted by the fact that no matter what time period you are in, people will sell robotic arm attachments, guns, and crossbows.

Egg MacGuffin: The Chrono Trigger, or "Time Egg", is a leftover relic from Zeal which the Guru of Time (Gaspar) has hidden up his sleeve. Its plot function is to resurrect Crono after he dies.

Eldritch Abomination: Lavos, a planetary parasite with powers over space-time. Fitting the Lovecraftian ideal even further, he's a source of immense magical power for an entire civilization.

Elemental Crafting: With the penultimate sword for Crono being crafted out of a sparkly Rainbow Shell. His truly ultimate sword in the remake is made of dreams.

Enemy Chatter: The enemies in the Abandoned Sewers, as well as Dalton and his goons.

Enemy Eats Your Lunch: The chancellor invokes this at Crono's trial to get him to look like a villain, saying that Crono stole a guy's lunch at the Millennial Fair.note Which most players most likely did on at least their first playthrough.

Enemy Mine: You can recruit Magus, and you shouldn't expect him to ever apologize for trying to kill you. Or anyone else, for that matter.

In a secret room in the Manolia Cathedral, you can find some fiends worshipping a statue of Magus:

Oh, great Magus, Magus the Great ♪ Your eyes are brighter than the stars ♪ Your long flowing hair, like waves atop the sea ♪ Even those miserable sunny days abate ♪ When we feel your seething hate ♪ Even brightened halls hold no fear ♪ Just so long as you are near ♪

On the heroic side, we have Cyrus, the original leader of the Square Table. By all accounts, this guy was the biggest badass the Middle Ages ever produced. His relationship with Glenn was very complex, and while it was strictly platonic, Frog's behavior is almost that of a grieving spouse.

Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": A few of the game's authority figures are listed only by their titles: The Chancellor (both of them, that is), the Dome Supervisor (never seen face-to-face, but hinted to be Marle's descendent and Doan's ancestor), the corrupt Mayor of Porre, and the "Old Man" chieftain of Laruba Village.

Everyone Is Related: Would you believe that the Guardia Royal Family has basically controlled the same continent for over sixty million years? And that most of your party is related to them in some fashion?note Given that there are thousands of generations between each change in "royal family", everyone should be related to the previous one.

Everything's Better with Spinning: Crono's Cyclone and Confuse attacks, and the various Dual Techs based off them — but averted by his "Cleave" attack which is, ironically enough, called "Spincut" in the original translation.

Evolutionary Stasis: Humans haven't changed one iota in 65 million years aside from the development of magic, and there's a number of other species that haven't changed at all either except for color. This is justified when you fight the final boss - turns out Lavos has personally controlled humanity's evolution since its crash landing in 65,000,000 BC. Apparently, the original form of man serves it best for its meal.

Ozzie. Also worth mentioning is the creepy, distorted laugh that echoes throughout the Fiendlord's Keep. It also occurs in other places, like the Guardia Castle prison and Norstein Bekkler's tent.

If you interact with the throne in the Giant's Claw, which is actually the Tyranno Lair, the leading party member will indulge in one.

Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Fiendlord's Keep, apart from a few candelabras. Some of Queen Zeal's architecture is quite dim as well (including her throne room, despite it being outdoors).

Evil Sorcerer: Magus appears to be this at first, but his motives are a bit more complex.

Exposed to the Elements: You have to wonder how well Ayla's holding up when you take her into the Ice Age, but then again, none of the other party members are adequately dressed for those conditions, and they never say anything about it either.

Expy: Since Akira Toriyama provided the character designs, this is to be expected:

One of the animated cutscenes featured in the Beyond Time ending shows that Glenn is pretty much a green-haired Vegeta.

One of the NPC sprites is Android 18.

The Blue Imp enemy resembles Emperor Pilaf.

Extreme Doormat: Schala is extremely meek despite being a very talented magic user.

Extreme Speculative Stratification: The Kingdom of Zeal, occupying the era of 12,000 BC, has a populace of elites inhabiting Floating Continents festooned with Crystal Spires and Togas, and use their powerful magic to make an easy life, while the "earthbound" without magic are forced to wear rags and live in caves. Things used to be more fair, until Queen Zeal rose to power and rearranged society around the worship of magic and its ultimate source, Lavos. They get their comeuppance, though: trying to use Lavos as a power source proves not to be a good idea and Zeal is sent crashing into the ocean.

Eye Lights Out: All the R-Y model robots, including Robo, have this happen to them.

Face–Heel Turn: Possibly Crono, Lucca and Marle in The Legendary Hero ending. Without Frog to take on Magus, Tata does it instead, only to find the three sitting in his throne room. Lucca and Marle then ready their weapons while Crono laughs.

Failure Is the Only Option: A minigame involves collecting cat food for Crono's cat(s). Regardless of how much you actually collect, it/they will still run away in the Beyond Time ending.

Fake Ultimate Hero: Thanks to Tata finding the Hero's Badge, everybody thinks that he's the legendary hero. Once Tata gets a little taste of how dangerous adventuring is, though, he's more than happy to give up the badge and title.

Fantastic Racism: There are hints of it between the humans and the fiends (intelligent monsters). Darkly justified; in the Manolia Cathedral in 600 A.D, you can find a non-hostile Naga whose one line is to burp loudly and comment on how the remaining human prisoners in the room with her look very tasty.

Chrono Resurrection was a fan-made project to remake key parts of Chrono Trigger as a Nintendo 64Tech Demo Game with awesome 3D graphics and remastered music. However, near the end of 2004, they received a Cease and Desist from Square Enix, and were forced to drop the project.

Fire/Ice Duo: Marle and Lucca have ice and fire techs, respectively, using them together as a Yin-Yang Bomb causes Shadow damage.

Fire/Ice/Lightning: There's Water, which counts as the same element as ice, and "Shadow." Lightning is actually a Bowdlerised version of the original Japanese "Heaven" element. The remake has sort of a middle ground, as Lightning has been changed to "Light."

Fling a Light into the Future: The Black Omen rises to the top of the clouds just as Zeal Kingdom collapses into the sea. All the worst traits of that civilization are preserved in this museum of freaks. On a more positive note, the Three Gurus work independently throughout time to fix the damage done by the Queen.

Flunky Boss: Many, many bosses, including the Final Boss, have "Bits" that assist the boss in attacking, counterattacking, or defense, and often can be revived by the main boss. Lavos has numerous spawn to assist it in the Boss Rush, some of them bipedal creatures. In the final battle, Lavos is disguised as one of the spawn.

No more than three people may time travel at once, or else they go to the End of Time (which isn't as bad as it sounds, more of a limbo for time travelers).

Magus and his henchmen.

Dalton has four golems.

Four Lavos Spawn.

Frickin' Laser Beams: Robo's Laser Spin technique, various enemy attacks in 2300 AD, and some lasers that act as barriers to progress in the factory stages.

Friendly Fire Proof: Generally played straight with your party's devastating magic attacks, but some enemy attacks will strike other enemies if they're between you and the attacker. Heck, some enemies will attack and even kill their compatriots before even bothering to attack the Player Party.

Frothy Mugs of Water: In the original English script, there's "soda" and "soup". In addition, Lucca's father, Taban, is shown to have a worrisome fondness of lemonade in one ending. This is all discarded in the remake.

Fusion Dance: Masa & Mune. The implike creatures actually powerslams into each other, resulting in a body like a steroid pumped bodybuilder's.

Futureshadowing: The Millennial Fair is swarming with these, such as the "Unga Bunga!" dancers on the east side who are performing Ayla's tribal dance from 65,000,000 BC. The most notable one is the swordsmith, Melchior, who recognizes Marle's pendant and implores her to "keep it safe!".

No sun, no food. A simple yet insurmountable problem for Doan and his comrades in the future. Lavos' eruption blocked out the sun and choked the atmosphere with soot.

In the Dark Ages, the magical floating kingdom of Zeal used to draw renewable power from the Sunstone, but mothballed it in favor of the Mammon Machine's energy. Queen Zeal also did away with the Gurus for preaching about living in accordance with nature and crap like that.

Gameplay and Story Segregation: When running around the Blackbird, special care must be taken to not be noticed, or you'll be captured and thrown back to your cell. If you have Ayla in your party, she will be able to engage in battle, although she is the only one able to do so. This is in spite of your characters' ability to cast magic, or in Robo's case, use his inbuilt laser cannons.

Game-Breaking Bug: Not on any of the console versions, but when played on a emulator. Infamously, ZSNES, the most common SNES emulator, would assign the default keys for L, R and A in such a way that it not register with the computer when pressed together, effectively trapping the player in the first few domes. It's easily solvable, just reassign the keys appropriately, but, to this day, searching for this online yields a plethora of results.

Game-Favored Gender: The ladies get the Prismatic Dress, which reduces all magic damage by 1/3. In the remake, the ladies also get the Angel's Tiara, which grants Auto Haste and total status immunity, and Lucca gets the Elemental Aegis, which makes her completely immune to magic.

Gave Up Too Soon: In the Reunion ending, Marle desperately fails to convince anyone to join her in saving Crono while they all return to their eras. Disappointed, she returns home with Lucca. The camera pans back to Gaspar, who notices that everyone had left while he was recovering the Chrono Trigger. It all works out though, because the party tracks Gaspar down.

Yakra, the monster that haunts Manolia Cathedral in Guardia. Almost every generation after him has the same M.O.: disguise himself as the Chancellor, and attempt to kill the queen or king to put an end to the Guardia royal bloodline. In the 400 years between 1000 and 600 AD, they fail to pose a threat at all.

Ozzie, whose descendant is the mayor (or janitor) of Medina Village in the present. The only difference is that somehow, the present Ozzie is purple.

Gender-Restricted Gear: The Prismatic Dress, which provides the most powerful defensive option (permanent Magic Barrier, reducing magic damage by 1/3) is only usable by Ayla, Lucca and Marle. Robo, Chrono, Frog, and Magus have Nova Armor, which provides status immunity and only marginally less defense than the best armor in the game.

Maid: You didn't do anything...funny, did you? Ooh, we musn't let this bit get out of the castle!

Marle's opinion of Johnny in the Memory Lane ending:

"I don't know about a guy whose greatest talent is being fast..."

Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: They become more numerous the further you progress in the game. This includes the Cave Imp, Giga Gaia, just about every boss fight in the Black Omen except the last two, etc. Ironically, the literal version of this is well-integrated into the plot.

Giant Wall of Watery Doom: Zeal's destruction in 12,000 BC causes a tsunami to flood most of the world. Only a few survivors remain, bridging the divide between the Earthbound Ones and the Enlightened Ones.

Global Currency Exception: In 65,000,000 B.C., you can only buy weapons by trading animal parts, which the monsters drop instead of gold.note The item merchant, on the other hand, is very enthusiastic about your "shiny stone". Meanwhile, in 2300 AD, while the merchants will take your cash, they will question its value.

Gold-Colored Superiority: The Knight Commander wears gold armor. If you agree to help him at Zenan Bridge, he'll give you his helmet of the same make.

Goldfish Poop Gang: Ozzie, Slash, and Flea. This is especially the case the second time you face them during the Ozzie Fort sidequest.

The Good King: King Guardia XXXIII is not the most emotionally-available parent around, but his ancestor King Guardia XXI is beyond reproach. Unfortunately, he's up to his neck in a war with the Fiendlord.

Gory Discretion Shot: Lucca's mother was crippled 10 years before the events of the game by getting stuck on a Conveyor Belt o' Doom. The Fiona's Forest sidequest allows Lucca to teleport to that exact moment, and you get a chance to stop the machine. Mess up, though, and the screen will fade to black accompanied by an agonizing scream.

Grandfather Paradox: In the Middle Ages, Crono has to stop Marle from being erased from existence by saving the era's queen, her ancestor. Marle inadvertently causes the paradox when she appears in 600 AD: the guards mistake her for Leene, and take her back to Guardia Castle. But since Leene is Marle's ancestor, her premature death causes Marle to be erased from existence once the Delayed Ripple Effect catches up with her.

The Guardia prison guards, big time. "Dangerous criminal on death row? No need to take away the dozen or so weapons that he's carrying."

Dalton's guards strip you of all of your gear. For the extra layer of security, they divide it up and keep each stash under guard. Dalton is not as stupid as he looks. The sentry still falls for the oldest trick in the book, though:

Touch, but do not open, a sealed chest in 600 A.D. before going to the same chest in 1000 A.D. to find an upgraded version of the item you'd find otherwise. A great trick the game only hints at by saying, "The item is reacting to the pendant" if you approach it in the Middle Ages, when the obvious course of action is to open the 1000 A.D. chest first and then go back to 600 A.D. Since not all sealed chests are upgradable, you may already think you won't be given a confirmation as to whether or not to open the chest at all.

Getting the Golden Gemstone accessory requires you to complete the Hero's Grave sidequest. Then you have to put Frog in the lead position and travel to the long-since completed Denadoro Mountains until you encounter the Freelancer who throws rocks at you. Your hints at this from NPCs or elsewhere? Zero.

The Memory Lane ending. Nearly all of the Multiple Endings accessible in a New Game+ playthrough are reached by defeating Lavos during relatively broad "windows," such as "after defeating Boss A, but before defeating Boss B." However, this particualar ending can only be viewed by defeating Lavos after witnessing Schala open the door to the throne room, but before taking the party's pendant to the Mammon Machine — the latter action is normally done immediately after the former, and it's extremely unlikely that the idea of "I think I'll backtrack out of here and defeat Lavos right this moment" would naturally occur to anyone in the absence of a guide.

Gusty Glade: The foot of Death Peak. You'll need Balthazar's help here.

Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Initially this is played straight with Crono and Frog using swords, and Marle and Lucca using a crossbow and gun, respectively. Robo then mixes it up with his laser attacks, and then Ayla smashes this with her mighty fists. And Magus has fairly high physical attack power, but all of his Tech attacks are magical.

Hate Plague: The ability of Lavos and his spawn to inflict Confuse invokes the tendency of Eldritch critters to drive people to madness. This is of course reflected in the Mammon Machine, whose malignant aura perverts the brain of Queen Zeal.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The fight against the first Golem cuts you a little slack. The battle can be tough if you don't know what you're doing, but even without grinding, it's not a Hopeless Boss Fight. However, since the plot requires that you be captured at the end of the sequence anyway, you won't be given a game over for losing. If you win, the game won't quite declare that The Battle Didn't Count, as the Golem stays dead, but all that changes plotwise is that Dalton takes you out with his Cutscene Power to the Max instead. So ultimately, the only real difference between victory and defeat is some XP.

Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Slight amusement can be found in naming Marle, Frog, Robo, and Magus their real names, once you've played through the game and know what they are.note Although you don't get the opportunity to name that last guy until after you find out their true identity. The remake allows six-letter names for characters, as memory issues limited the original to five letters, allowing the player to name Crono as he was intended in the Japanese version ("Chrono").

He's Back: After getting his medal back and realizing that his kingdom still needs a hero, Frog picks up the Masamune with renewed determination and, with his theme song blaring, he leads the charge to Magus' Castle.

He Who Fights Monsters: Magus. As a child, he blocked out his magical power because he hated what it was doing to his mother and sister. After he was sent to 600 A.D., he embraced that same power in order to destroy Lavos, becoming much like his mother in the process.

Here We Go Again!: The Beyond Time ending. After saving the world, Crono's mom (and cat(s)) fall into a Time Gate and disappear. While everyone else freaks out, Crono does a Fist Pump and races to the time machine without pause.

The Hero: Crono through and through. He doesn't hesitate to go after Marle when she disappears, he readily agrees to save the world from a seemingly-omnipotent Eldritch Abomination, and he is the first person to disagree when the Melchior in 12,000 BC says that there's nothing that can be done to save Schala. Exemplified at the beginning of the game: When Marle's "pieces" tried to escape before being sucked into the time rift, Crono's "pieces" dashed right in.

Heroic Mime: Crono, of course. However, the other characters react to him as if he can talk when the player is offered choices to answer and he does speak in the Memory Lane ending. This is lampshaded when he's almost executed:

"Any last words?"

Heroic Sacrifice: Crono dies fighting Lavos, getting his body vaporized by the monster in order to give his friends time to escape. Thankfully, the party finds a way to bring him back, if the player so chooses.

High Class Gloves: Queen Leene and Princess Nadia wear white gloves with their royal dresses.

The High Queen: Leene, and Marle acts like one when she's mistaken for Leene. Then there's Queen Zeal, naturally.

Holy Burns Evil: Magus's weakness to the Masamune. Not just when you fight him — in the Northern Ruins, if Magus is in your party, he will recoil behind his cape when the Masamune begins emitting light, not dropping back to normal until Masa and Mune are gone.

Hoist by His Own Petard: In the Tyranno Lair, it's possible to drop a pair of monsters on each side of a hallway into a pit, sparing you the battle. Later, a trap switch sends you into a cell a few levels down where the same monsters are now waiting for you.

Lavos in its first appearance. It's technically not a hopeless fight, just incredibly difficult. The story dictates that you lose this fight, and Lavos has higher stats than normal in this encounter just to make sure, but if your stats are high enough, you can actually win, which will earn you the hardest ending — a visit to the Developer's Room.note This ending can also happen if you beat Lavos before you ever go back in time, thus being a Duel Boss between Crono and Lavos; it requires you to be on New Game+ to even try though, much less win.

The battle against the Ghost of Cyrus in 1000 AD is impossible to win. You can't even damage the boss, and the fight ends automatically after a few turns. You have no choice but to use time travel to get around him.

Hub Level: The End of Time takes on this role once it's introduced. For much of the game, you need to cross through it when going between time eras, it's got free healing and a save point, and features an endless source of advice in case you forget when you were going to go next.

You can cure HP, MP, or both in Guardia Castle by ordering one of three dishes.

In the Crapsack World that is the future, you can sleep in a machine that restores all of your HP/MP, except it notes: "But you're still hungry!"

You can also regain all HP and MP by drinking "happy water" in 65,000,000 BC.

Ice Magic Is Water: Humans have affinity with either water, fire, light or shadow. Of the two water types in the main cast, Frog's magic is mostly water based, and Marle's is ice based, though both can use it for healing as well.

Ozzie is another possibility, given that he encases himself in what looks like a large ice crystal when you finally corner him.

Identical Grandson: A necessary evil thanks to technological constraints — people and their ancestors and descendants are often just palette swaps of each other. However, in one case (namely, Marle's), this is used as a deliberate plot point.

Frog attempts one on Cyrus' ghost in 600 AD. It doesn't take; it's a Hopeless Boss Fight, and there's no option but to flee.

The extra Dream's Epilogue ending in the remake, when Magus finds Schala.

Improvised Lightning Rod: Crono and Frog have a combination attack called Lightning Rod, in which Frog leaps at the enemy and impales them with his broadsword, then Crono hits the sword with a lightning spell.

The conveyor belts in the factory areas are understandable enough, but one has to wonder what they're doing on the Blackbird.

Played with in the Ozzie's Fort sidequest. A pair of monsters spawn on conveyor belts. Before the batle menu pops up, the conveyor belts drop the poor mooks into pits. The battle music slowly peters off and the party just stands there as if to say "Did that really just happen?"

Industrialized Evil: The dark secret in the bowels of Geno Dome: The robots are gathering up humans and placing them on a conveyor belt to be slaughtered. This process will continue ad infinitum, with digitized screaming to complete the picture, until you kill Mother Brain.

Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Actually justified, for once; like the Sun Stone and Forest Ruins, the black sigil boxes were scattered over the globe when Zeal fell in 12,000 BC, gradually re-surfacing over the eons. In some cases, NPCs comment that the boxes have been passed down for generations and no one has been able to open them.

Inn Security: One of the possible enemy encounters in the Fiendlord's Keep? Fake save points.

It's a very minor spoiler, but after rushing after Marle when she disappears in Lucca's teleportation device, Crono unknowingly ends up traveling through time to the past. While you have no idea where you are until you speak to a few NPCs, saving the game at this point will give you the chapter title "The Middle Ages".

In the SNES version, Magus' name is not spelled in all-caps like other NPCs during one of Frog's flashbacks. This is a very subtle clue that he is recruitable later on. Additionally, after the Kingdom of Zeal crash lands, you gain access to a dealer who sells scythes among other things. Scythes are the Weapon of Choice for Magus, who can join your team shortly after.

Infinity -1 Sword: The remake retroactively does this for almost all the party's best weapons from the original version of the game, since it introduces even stronger ones. Frog and Ayla's best weapons are the same in every version. Additionally, the remake also add the Dinoblade for the former, which is his second best weapon.

Infinity +1 Sword: As noted above, excluding Frog and Ayla, the remake adds even stronger weapons for the rest of the party:

The Dreamseeker for Crono. It has a 90% critical hit rate.

The Venus Bow for Marle. It always deals 777 damage.

The Spellslinger for Lucca. It deals damage based on the last number of her MP.

The Apocalypse Arm for Robo. It deals 9,999 damage on critical hits.

The Dreamreaper for Magus. It deals 4x the damage on critical hits.

Informed Flaw: Everybody thinks Lucca and her father are a pair of incompetent mad scientists, most likely because Taban built a machine that ended up accidentally crippling his wife. However, Lucca is seen inventing different types of offensive weapons, hypnotic devices, and an item capable of controlling tears in the fabric of time. Meanwhile, Taban develops increasingly effective suits of body armor for his daughter to use.

In Spite of a Nail: During the Fiona's Shrine sidequest, it is revealed that the reason why Lucca's a scientist and engineer today is because she was powerless to stop the machine that crippled her mother. You are given a chance to rectify this, and if Future!Lucca succeeds, a diary entry reveals that Young!Lucca still dedicated her life to science, for the exact same reason.

Irrelevant Sidequest: The Geno Dome sidequest. If you defeat Lavos and save the world, then the things will fix themselves. If you didn't do this sidequest, the ending will still be every bit as good, whereas with the others, you usually fix something that happened before the apocalypse.

Joke Item: The Mop, which is acquired by charming a Nu. It's a weapon for Crono with an attack rating of 1, which is lower than his starting weapon. There's no trick to getting good damage out of it and it doesn't unlock any secret techs or quests. It's just a mop.

Joker Jury: Much later, after leaving the Rainbow Shell with King Guardia XXI for safekeeping, it mysteriously goes missing from his descendants' vault. This time, the Chancellor accuses the King of selling off national treasures, and nearly gets himself elevated to regent in his place. It's eventually revealed that the Chancellor is really Yakra XIII wanting revenge for his ancestor's failure.

Jury and Witness Tampering: In the Rainbow Shell sidequest, King Guardia XXXIII is put on trial for selling the kingdom's royal treasure for petty cash. During the trial, the player gets to see that the prosecution's star witness was in fact setting up the king on orders from the Chancellor. And then it turns out he isn't the real Chancellor, but a disguised descendant of Yakra, the very first boss the heroes defeated to save Marle's ancestor, Queen Leene.

Kangaroo Court: Early on, you're put on trial for kidnapping the princess. You can actually win the trial, though it's difficult. However, even if you're acquitted, you still do time for running off with the princess and the Chancellor switches around the paperwork to arrange an execution.

Karma Houdini: Considering all the headaches he causes, the fact that Dalton just sort of runs away following his last boss fight and faces no comeuppance for his role in the game's events is something of a letdown. It's even worse in the remake and in Chrono Cross when it's revealed that he runs off to Porre and helps turn them into an advanced military nation that eventually conquers Guardia, the homeland of Crono, Marle, and Lucca.

Subverted when you go back to 600 and hear about the Hero, Tata, a young boy who has the Hero Medal. It's really Frog's medal, which he abandons after getting beat up by Magus. Tata just finds it and gets hailed as a hero, but flees for his life once you follow him.

Kill All Humans: The robots led by Mother Brain in 2300 A.D. decide that humanity had its chance and failed, so the best thing to do is wait for Lavos and its spawn to leave the planet, take care of the last meatbags, and build a new android civilization.

Kudzu Plot: The Entity. Eventually, it becomes clear that the Planet itself is the entity.

L-Q

Late-Arrival Spoiler: The remake shows Magus along with the rest of the party in some of the earliest pictures used to demonstrate special techniques, even though his eventual Heel–Face Turn is supposed to be a twist.

The Ocean Palace is carpeted with lava, with metal catwalks separating you from it.

The present Dimensional Vortex has a volcano in its second half.

Lazy Backup: Played straight for all but one instance: the future Dimensional Vortex locks your active party behind a door, which is when the rest of the party shows up to flip the switch on the other side of the facility. Particularly bizarre as you can instantly switch out when not in combat, despite it being implied the switched character had to take the closest gate to catch up to you.

Leaked Experience: Characters not in the active fighting party receive only 75% of the experience and no tech points.

Left the Background Music On: Dalton, when he modifies the Epoch. The time machine starts playing Crono's theme when engaged but Dalton quickly calls for a change.

Leitmotif: Not only does each time period, character, and geographic location share leitmotifs, you can match some of them up based on how they sound:

Letting the Air Out of the Band: During a brief moment in Ozzie's Fort, when he winches up a pair of monsters like he did repeatedly earlier in the Fiendlord's Keep: the battle music starts up but since the monsters immediately land on a pair of conveyor belts that send them crashing back downstairs, it quickly grinds to a halt.

Levels Take Flight: The Blackbird. It culminates in battling Dalton on top of the Epoch in mid-flight.

Load-Bearing Boss: Defeating Giga Gaia causes the suspension chain to snap on the Mountain of Woe, which collapses into the sea.

Load-Bearing Hero: Robo does this early in the game, though he is holding two automatic doors closing horizontally, instead of one structure falling vertically. Oddly, he doesn't actually leave any room for the other characters to move around him, but thanks to game mechanics, the other characters can simply walk through him.

Loads and Loads of Loading: For whatever reason, instead of just using a text dump of the English localization, the PlayStation port instead stacks a real time translation software on top of it, taxing the system's RAM more than it has to and drastically increasing the loading as a result.

He first joins Crono and Lucca as a Guest-Star Party Member to rescue Queen Leene, but then retreats to the Cursed Woods because he failed to prevent her from being kidnapped in the first place. Fetching the Hero Medal and reforging the Masamune snaps him out of his funk and gets him to join the party permanently.

The first is a last-second surprise, as it starts out as an unrelated sidequest to restore a forest. However, it turns out that such a restoration is a job that will take many centuries. Thus, Robo stays behind to see it done. When you meet him again, he's gained quite a new perspective on life.

The second is in 2300 AD, where you go to the Geno Dome. Here, Robo learns his real origins and the purpose for which he was made, but chooses to side with his human friends and defeat his creator.

MacGuffin Title: The titular Chrono Trigger is a Time Egg that allows the characters to save Crono after he dies.

Probably an unintentional example. Since Gato must survive to give out silver points afterwards, he can't die no matter what the party hits him with. A Luminaire to the face? Still standing. Warp the fabric of space and time with a Dark Matter blast? Shrugs it right off. Blow up the entire screen with a triple tech? What else you got? Lucca built him really sturdy.

The sealed chests. Families have had them for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but have never managed to open them.

Magic Kiss: Ayla's Kiss ability heals your party members' health while confirming her Bi the Way interest in strong men and women.

Magic Knight: Five of the seven characters can learn magic, including sword-wielders Crono and Frog. Plus, Robo's laser abilities are as good as spells.

Marathon Level: The Black Omen is a straight path; all you have to do is fight. In addition to the huge assortment of enemies, you have to endure elevator ride skirmishes, clones of Heckran and Son of the Sun, wall panel robots, seven bosses and Lavos itself.

Mayor of a Ghost Town: Doan, being the descendant of the Proto Dome's Supervisor.note He killed in the bad ending.

Porre's Mayor is leeching off of the town. He becomes a hindrance in the present day when the Sun Stone goes missing after eons of undisturbed sleep. The Mayor plays dumb, but if you travel back to the middle ages and give the Spiced Jerky to one of his ancestors for free, he will learn the value of charity and fork over the Sun Stone without complaint.

Ozzie VII is a fat, selfish pig, much like his ancestor. He seems to lack all credibility as a elder apart from his relation to the "Great Ozzie", and the servants in his house all despise him. Ozzie's ignominious death changes history; Ozzie VII is reduced to a housekeeper and now is subservient to a Blue Imp.

Magus has mystical connotations, and is the singular form for the three Magi that visited Jesus in Christian mythology who, in another case of Woolsey's influence, are named Balthazar, Melchior, and Gaspar.

Magus's two Japanese names keep this trend. Janus's Japanese name is Jaki, which basically refers to an evil imp, or small demon, and his title is Maou, which basically means "Demon King".

The Hero of a time traveling plot is named Chrono (or Crono), which literally means "time."

Frog's original name was Glenn, and is referred to as "Grenn" in promotional materials. 'Grenn' is short for the French word for frog "grenouille".

Mecha-Mooks: Robots in three different time periods, thousands of years apart.

Medical Monarch: Marle is the party's first healer, but before long she's outclassed.

Medieval European Fantasy: Both 600 AD and 1000 AD fit the definition, despite the presence of various anachronisms. The "Present" is not that dissimilar from the Middle Ages. 600 AD is an even more clear-cut example, since the technology level is more traditionally medieval, without electricity, unlike the Present as presented in-game, which has some degree of modern technology like refridgerators and electrical ovens.

The Rubble enemies found at the Mountain of Woe, which pose minimal danger to your party and yield a large amount of Tech Points. The only problem is they have obscenely high evade stats, and will always lock out all of your abilities other than regular attacks. This makes it infinitely more likely that you'll miss for five or so turns until they run away.

The Wonder Rock gives 10,000 EXP and drops the Lumicite Shard, which is needed make the Elemental Aegis for Lucca. However, it has several thousand HP, it will counter every attack with a powerful eruption, and of course, it will run away if you're not careful.

Minigame Zone: Leene Square is full of carnival games. Some involve wagers: One becomes mandatory for a sidequest late in the game, funnily enough, although the only cost of failure is 40 Silver Points.

Mirror Match: In the remake, at the end of the Dimensional Vortexes, Crono, Lucca, and Marle each have a battle against a shade version of themselves. It's not one-on-one, however.

Missing Main Character: Towards the end of the main quest, Crono is removed from the party, forcing the player to choose another party member to replace him. Fortunately, due to leaked experience, the character will be the same level, but they won't have as many abilities as the characters that the player was using on a regular basis. Once the player reaches the point that only sidequests and the final boss remain, it is possible for Crono to rejoin the party.

Mistaken for Murderer: Kidnapper in this case. As soon as Crono returns from the past for the first time after saving the princess, he's arrested for kidnapping. This is due to the fact that the "Chancellor" is now a descendant of Yakra, and since you went back in time and stopped the original Yakra from impersonating the Chancellor, his broodlings took it upon themselves to finish what he had started. The "mistake" is actually an act of revenge.

Money Spider: Except in 65,000,000 BC, where the local equivalent of currency is dropped instead.note You can still spend G in that era, but it's only with one guy who is interested in trading for your "shiny stone", and he just sells regular items.

Monster Town: Medina Village. They don't like you there until you change history so that it was founded by fiends who didn't mind humans.

Multiple Endings: There are 13, many of which can only be attained in a New Game+. Variations for a couple of these depends on whether Crono is dead, Magus is in your party, if you completed certain quests, and the method you used to reach Lavos. Quite a few of them are joke endings, while two others are just glorified credit reels. The thirteenth ending is featured exclusively in the remake.

Namedar: Ayla's off-the-cuff name for Lavos, it means "big fire" in her dialect, evidently passes into the lexicon. How the name survives over 64 million years is Hand Waved, as Zeal rediscovers Lavos after some time of using solar energy.

Never Found the Body: Dalton, who gets sucked into a portal. The only villain who doesn't get irretrievably dispatched on screen. Now does his bringing down Guardia make a bit more sense?

After defeating Yakra, the Chancellor in 600 AD insists on creating a criminal justice system after his kidnapping to deter criminal and monster activity. By 1000 AD, the system has been corrupted into a star chamber under the Chancellor of the time, thus causing major trouble between the kingdom and the heroes until it revealed that the Chancellor is fake and is actually Yakra XIII, a descendant of the original Yakra, in disguise.

Subverted by the heroes when they invade the Fiendlord's Keep in an attempt to stop Magus from creating Lavos. After defeating him, they learn that Magus only summoned Lavos in an attempt to destroy him. Lavos then wakes up, and causes Magus and the heroes to be sucked into a giant Time Gate. Magus curses Crono and company for interfering, but it's heavily implied that in the original timeline that Lavos destroyed Magus. The heroes' interference actually saves Magus from being killed.

Ayla heads to the secret Laruba Village to gather reinforcements, but the Reptites follow her there, setting fire to the whole village. Ayla vows to make amends.

In the original timeline, Zeal and its Queen were destroyed by Lavos. Thanks to the heroes' actions, the Queen survives and the Ocean Palace becomes the Black Omen, a monstrous floating labyrinth that simply sits over the entire world.

Ninja Prop: You can sneak through a section of the Abandoned Sewers, which is full of monsters, as long as you don't make any noise. This includes touching the save point, as the little chime that sounds will also get their attention.

No Bikes in the Apocalypse: Played relatively straight. There are interstates and highways in the future, but nobody left to drive on them; in fact, the Sites are mostly composed of ruined streetlights and rusted-out cars. The party eventually borrows a turbocycle from Johnny, but are required to race him to use it.

No-Gear Level: Dalton wisely disarms the party before tossing them into the clink, but forgets to handcuff Robo and Ayla, which somewhat defeats the purpose. Scattered throughout the Blackbird are chests containing each hero's weapons, your items, and your cash.

No Pronunciation Guide: A consequence of the game originally coming out before the Internet really took off. By now, most fans know what was intended.

Nobody Can Die: Toyed with, particularly in the scenes where you are chased by guards you cannot battle. Most humans will turn out to be monsters in disguise before you fight them. This becomes somewhat ironic in that major characters can die and many of the nonhuman enemies you are allowed to kill freely are shown to be sentient.

Zeal Palace. The BGM is one of the more ominous tracks used in the game. The palace stands upon the highest peak in the floating rocks that make up Zeal.

They don't get more ominous than the Black Omen. Originally an undersea power plant plugged into Lavos' power, it's been warped into a futuristic airship but can't go anywhere, rendering it little more than a flying arcology.

Only Shop in Town: Each town has one place to buy and sell things. This even holds true in the Bad Future. There is an exception at the game's start: Melchior is peddling his wares at the fair, and his stuff is a grade or two above everyone else's.

You can choose to not recover Robo once you let him stay behind in the Middle Ages to reforest the land.

Magus depending on if you fight him again or not.

Crono once he's killed by Lavos.

Orphaned Etymology: The years are expressed with BC and AD. The epoch of this system is apparently the founding of Guardia, but what the letters stand for in this world is anyone's guess.

Our Hero Is Dead: Crono dies during the course of the game while fighting Lavos. Of course, this being a game about time travel, it is entirely possible to bring him back. Or not, if you don't feel like it.

Our Founder: The ever-changing statue in Medina Square. It starts out as a monument to Magus, then changes to Ozzie, of all people. It finally vanishes once Ozzie is taken out of commission.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: After Crono, Marle, and Lucca jump into the 2300 A.D. portal when Crono escapes from jail, the guards seem to forget about them, as later you can go to Guardia Castle and nobody will attempt arresting Crono. This is before the Chancellor is discovered to be Yakra's descendant, which makes it more strange. This is addressed in the game. If you talk to the soldiers and other people in the castle after they stop chasing you out,note Which happens around the time you can open the sealed chests. Marle must be in your party the first time. they'll say that the king pardoned Crono after being pleaded to by Pierre, and that only the Chancellor really believes Crono is guilty to begin with.

Lavos is an extraterrestrial planetary parasite, making him a literalGiant Space Flea from Nowhere. Lavos' existence is known to various people at various times, but nobody knew its purpose until 1999, when it woke up.

The party when they arrive in any time period that they're not native to. Their one big defeat happens because they aren't out of context to the people of Zeal since they can do magic, have Magitek that rivals the tech from Robo's time, and Magus is there to warn them about the heroes before they even arrive.

Paper-Thin Disguise: Magus disguises himself as a prophet in 12,000 BC by basically putting a hood on his cape. It doesn't even fully cover his hair. Of course, it still works, since no one in the time period knows who he is, and his past self is a child.

Party Scattering: This happens after the Fall of Zeal. Crono is dead, Magus is missing, and the three party members who get captured by Dalton are separated from any form of time travel for a while.

Permanently Missable Content: Averted in the long run. Although the examples below show loot being unobtainable during a single playthrough, New Game+ allows you to attempt to get these items an unlimited amount of times:

Anything at the Tyranno Lair, Zeal, the Mountain of Woe, and Geno Dome.

If you're going for the upgraded items in the sealed chests, it's a bad idea to loot them right away.

Certain items, like the best elemental absorb armors, can only be acquired by charming. If you forgot to charm their holder, you can forget about them for that playthrough.

Anything you forget to recover on the Blackbird before heading out to the boss fight.

Personality Powers: The amphibious Frog is a Water innate and dark magician Magus is Shadow, and Crono, one of the fastest characters, is aligned with Heaven, Lightning, or Light, depending on version.note The original Japanese version, the SNES English translation, and remake translation, respectively. Inverted, however, with Lucca and Marle — the impetuous ("hot-headed") princess is a Water/Ice innate where logical, scientific-minded Lucca sets things on fire.

You can visit 65,000,000 BC as soon as you access the End of Time, several dungeons before you actually need to go there. In 65,000,000 BC lies the Dactyl's Nest, an area you're not supposed to visit until the second time you arrive at the time period. The enemies there give three times the typical amount of EXP than battles in the next storyline dungeon do, at only a mild increase in difficulty. There's also the Nu in the Hunting Range. It can't kill you, but you can defeat it for TPs. It's somewhat difficult to find, however.

The Fiendlord's Keep has a chamber (right-hand path from entryway) before the room where Flea's fought that has three groups that drop 413 experience each (which is decent), but each one also often drops a Mid Ether (restores 30 MP in battle), 720 gold (which is nice), and give 11 TPs for icing on the cake.

While taken aboard the Blackbird, you can encounter mooks which, despite posing a minimal threat, still give more EXP than their challenging recolors from the Ocean Palace.

The Geno Dome starts with a conveyor belt which has five sets of enemies, which reward a total combined EXP of roughly 10,000, far greater than any other location in the entire game. It also gives a decent amount of TPs. A garbage chute at the end of the belt allows you to travel back to the beginning and reset the enemies, making it the perfect location to grind.

In the Black Omen, there is a hall which puts you against three enemies every time you walk through it. If you're strong enough to beat them all before they can escape, you can learn all your Techs easily. It also contains an enemy from whom you can steal Strength Capsules, items that give a permanent +1 bonus to your Strength attribute.

Pimped-Out Dress: Leene's dress is loaded with frills and ruffles. Marle also sports one a few times, but she apparently wears her everyday clothes underneath it in case she feels the need to run off. In the Imagine Spot about why Marle vanished before your eyes, this is the standard gear for Guardia's female royals.

Pistol-Whipping: Marle whacks things with her crossbow if they're too close to shoot at. Lucca, using a much smaller pistol, uses a hammer instead.

Lavos itself and the Black Omen. Unlike other areas of the game where you can loot a chest in both the future and then the past, the Black Omen will remember when you have defeated portions of it. Lavos' shell will also remain broken, even if you destroy it in 1000 AD and try to fight him again in 600 AD or 12,000 BC. Interestingly, Queen Zeal is not affected: you can fight her up to three times and she will remember it like it is the first.

Planar Shockwave: Fire II and some other magic spells feature this as part of their visuals.

Planet Eater: Lavos, whose species crashes into worlds like meteors, burrows deep into the core, consumes energy for millennia while leeching genetic code from the strongest native life forms, then sends its offspring into the void with an extinction event.

Marle's disappearance in 600 AD is the big fat headscratcher. This is the sole occasion that a wholesale reality rewrite happens in front of the protagonists before the triggering event even occurs. In every other occasion, anyone who's traveled through time remembers both the world before and after, and the changes don't appear until the trigger has occurred and the new future is visited.

Characters will reference seeing a door at the end of the sewer level in 2300. This dungeon is not only completely optional, but no one even suggests that you should go there.

Plotline Death: It's the hero himself. You don't even have to get him back. If you don't, though, the first thing Marle and Lucca do after taking care of Lavos and sending the other three or four characters to their home times is hop into the Epoch and head to "get Crono back".

Port Town: A ferry operates between Truce and Porre. Once history is changed and relations with Medina thaw over, it's revealed that Medina is in the process of adding a ferry as well.

Portal Network: The Gates and Pillars of Light linking the time periods via the End of Time.

The Power of the Sun: The Sun Stone, which was used as Zeal's superadvanced power source until it ran dry and they turned to Lavos' power instead. The party can repower the Stone and use it to make Lucca's Wondershot and the stat-multiplying Sunglasses. It can also be combined with the Rainbow Shell to produce the Prism Spectacles and Crono's Rainbow.

Precap: One of these plays if you leave the game on the title screen long enough.

Preexisting Encounters: The Trope Codifier for JRPGs. All the encounters are pre-scripted and appear at the same point and with the same enemies every playthrough, and many are also avoidable and allow you to see their contents beforehand. On the other hand, quite a few battles are unavoidable ambushes set at fixed points, which respawn every time you change "screens". Some rare enemies only appear at random, although it's still your choice to fight them or not.

The Son of Sun requires the player to attack one of five fireballs to actually damage the boss. Which fireball is the correct one changes constantly. However, a Red Mail is a Game-Breaker for this boss; the Son of Sun and his cronies can only deal fire damage, so equipping a character with the armor that absorbs fire-elemental attacks turns the boss from "frustratingly hard" to tedious.

Ozzie is a rather pathetic version. Defeating him both times requires flipping a switch behind him.

Quirky Miniboss Squad: Ozzie, Slash, and Flea. They're different from others in that they're fairly competent.

R-Z

Ragnarök Proofing: The Sun Palace and Sealed Pyramid, both relics of Zeal Kingdom, slowly unearth themselves as the continents drift.

Ramming Always Works: Sorta. Ramming Lavos with the Epoch only skips a slightly tedious replay of several earlier boss battles; the core is still alive. The Reunion and Beyond Time endings change to reflect whether you did this or not.

Recurring Location: Crono visits the future site of Leene Square at the beginning of the game. In The Legendary Hero ending, Robo is seen walking around a futuristic Leene Square; he and Atropos reenact Crono and Marle's Crash-Into Hello.

Redemption Demotion: Magus isn't quite as hardcore when he joins your party as he was in his castle, though he's still quite probably the strongest character in the game. He had, of course, had some of his power drained off by Lavos.

Redundant Researcher: Toma makes himself redundant due to the heroes' temporal shenanigans. He's looking for the Rainbow Shell, as are the party, and he's the one who actually finds out where it's located. However, he dies before he can retrieve it. When the party pours a bottle of spirit on his tombstone in 1000 AD, his ghost tells them where the Shell is, and they are the ones who retrieve it, thanks to his information.

When you last leave the Tyranno Lair, it's reduced to a smoldering crater that is visible from space. Lavos' impact buries the castle underground, where it eventually becomes accessible again in 600 AD. It's actually more of a merging of the trap-filled caves of the Reptite Lair and the prison/throne room associated with Azala; the outdoor areas of Tyranno Lair were obliterated.

The Ocean Palace is seemingly nuked by Lavos, but is quickly transmogrified into the Black Omen.

After the survivors of Zeal huddle together at the Last Village, Dalton arrives on the scene with several minions to declare himself the de facto King. Defeating him and blowing up the Blackbird results in the destruction of the last of Zeal's forces.

Sometime after Magus' defeat, Ozzie, Flea, and Slash flee to their own castle, and Ozzie renames himself Ozzie the Great. After Ozzie's death, the fiends no longer hate the humans and both co-exist peacefully in the Present.

Briefly happens to Marle by way of the Grandfather Paradox in the first part of the game: She happened to land at the point where her ancestor Queen Leene had been kidnapped. Because Marle looks so much like her ancestor, everyone mistook her for their queen and called the search off, leading to Marle being erased out of existence shortly after her reunion with Crono. Fortunately, the queen had not been killed yet, so Crono, Lucca and Frog managed to save her and return Marle to existence.

The party fears this may happen to Robo if they stop the Day of Lavos and thus change the year 2300. It doesn't.

Retro Upgrade: Robo, a robot from year 2300, can be equipped with stone arms you find in prehistory and they're the best weapons you can find (at the time).

Robo Family: Robo and his fellow R-series robots are never actually called "brothers", but they do share a bond — or at least they used to.

Robot Names: Robo is also known as R66-Y. Then it's revealed that he was Prometheus, which is not on the list of standard robot names.

Rooftop Confrontation: Battling the Black Tyranno on top of the Tyranno Lair, and later an outer space duel with Queen Zeal.

Rubber Band A.I.: Spekkio, who becomes more powerful when the lead party member's level reaches a level divisible by 10. Needless to say, you'll have a far better chance of beating him at levels 19, 29, 39, etc. than at 10/20/30.

Ruins of the Modern Age: The Sites in 2300 A.D. along with bits of random destroyed buildings in the overworld. In contrast to the futuristic domes, these places look exactly like what a modern day city would look like.

Run, Don't Walk: Don't try running on the second Death Peak obstacle, though.

San Dimas Time: Your adventures in the past seem to have a checkpoint system — you can go back to 65,000,000 BC/12000 BC/600 AD, yes, but you won't have to do anything more than once. Also, there are a few instances where one can tell that time took place while you weren't a specific time period; for instance, the Broken Bridge in 600 AD gets fixed "while" you're having adventures in 1000 AD and 2300 AD.

1000 A.D. is the "modern world," with a mix of medieval and modern architecture: castle, modern military uniforms, refrigerators, and swords and guns together. On the outer edges of science and magic, there's even a robot and human cloning.

There are guns found throughout time. There's even a "Ruby Gun" in 65,000,000 BC. There are also robot arms in this time period.

From one walkthrough:

[600 AD, Tata and the Frog]: "Grab the Mirage hand. It's a nice weapon for Robo. Ponder why they've got robot parts laying about in the middle ages while you equip it on him."

At the beginning of the game, Lucca tells you to step on the left Telepod. Oh, but look! There's a twinkle on the right one, surely it won't hurt to collect a hidden item before getting the plot underway, right? Right?

In Ozzie's Fort, the final room has a treasure chest (containing a Full Ether) out in the open. Only problem is, it's guarded by an axe machine operated by Ozzie. The axe won't outright kill you, but it'll render your whole party's HP to 1. You can choose to do one of the following: A) Fall for the bait, get the Full Ether and just heal the damage off, or B) Head to the end of the room, have Ozzie tempt you even more and have a random Imp fall into said trap, causing Ozzie to run away, leaving the chest unguarded.

You can head straight to the Prehistoric era right after getting to the End of Time a good while before you are actually supposed to go there and thus grind for significantly greater rewards than you would get if you followed the storyline, which makes the next several sections a complete cakewalk. There's even an area in the Prehistoric age itself that you aren't supposed to go to until after the next section that makes even the first intended visit pretty easy.

You can go to Medina Village where the shops sell advanced weapons for 65,000G each.

It is possible to do one of the Fated Hour quests early. You can do the sidequest to revive Fiona's Forest in 600 AD the moment you reach the Kingdom of Zeal and tell a particular person to keep a plant. It's more challenging to do the sidequest, but it lends itself to getting some of the best helmets.

Crono sets to prevent the assassination of Queen Leene before Marle's wiped from existence.

This one's a two-parter: In the middle ages, the great forest in South Zenan was destroyed by Magus' army. Fiona pledged to carry on during her husband, Marco's, absence in the war and regrow the forest by hand; however, she died before she could complete her mission and the wasteland continued to grow. In the original timeline, this was foreordained, but if Fiona's ancestor was convinced to keep a plant in 12,000 BC, the true cause of the desertification is revealed. After killing the fiend who was causing the Sunken Desert to form, Robo offers to stay behind in the past and tend to the fields, pointing out that the party can easily pop back to the present and pick him up. In the new present, the forest has overtaken the desert completely, and a shrine stands in tribute to Fiona and Robo's sacrifice. As promised, the rusty robot is waiting to be reactivated on an altar. In return for this, the Planet creates a special portal for Lucca, which leads into the next event...

Lucca was indirectly responsible for her mother, Lara's, paralysis as she could not figure out how to shut off her father's machine in time. To atone for her failure, Lucca became a mechanics expert; Lara remained bitter over the incident and her daughter and husband's obsession with "silly machines." Lucca can give her younger self a boost by entering the passcode to stop the treadmill, saving her mother and allowing her to walk, while young Lucca decides to study machines to prevent further accidents. In the Moonlight Festival epilogue, Lara invites Taban to dance.

Although the humans eventually drove back Magus' horde, relations between the two clans remain frosty, and a growing number of fiends are still worshiping the memory of their dear leader. After the party takes Magus out, Ozzie becomes the new leader; killing him removes all lingering influence over Medina. Fiends are no longer hostile to humans and the store prices have dropped to sane levels at last.

Lavos' final defeat saves the future and averts the robot apocalypse. This is confirmed in The Legendary Hero ending with Robo and Atropos sitting in a futuristic Leene Square.

Since Akira Toriyama did the character designs, Crono looks like Goku,note He wears a crown straight out of Dragon Quest in the one of the animated cutscenes in the Beyone Time ending, Marle wears one of Bulma's early outfits, Ayla looks like Bad Launch, and Lucca looks like Arale from Dr. Slump.

Lavos' second form is likely a shout out to the Guyver series or the Super Sentai series. Not only does he look a lot like a Guyver, his chest blaster attack also requires him to literally open his chest to shoot the beam, much like mega smasher from the Guyver series, and it also happens to be his strongest attack. His second form also bears a striking resemblance to Imperfect Cell.

If you are playing the SNES version of the Rainbow Shell sidequest, when Marle and the others head down to the Guardia Castle basement, the snakes are named Dumb and Dumber.

The Knights of the Square Table are simultaneously a nod to Arthurian legend and to the game's development company.

Tata, the would-be Kid Hero in the middle ages, looks like a hero from in a Dragon Quest game, another franchise Toriyama did art designs for. His role derives from the Erdrick trilogy with the Hero's Badge mimicking the Erdrick Seal, and his "quest" to defeat Magus parallels with the Edrick's quest to slay Baramos (and later Zoma). His idle sprite even walks perpetually in place like the sprites from the earlier Dragon Quest games did, when no other sprite in-game does this.

Two rooms in the Fiendlord's Keep are obvious references to Donkey Kong, with a side view (instead of the top-down view used in the rest of the game) of platforms which Roly enemies roll down, and broken ladders you can use to avoid them.

Most notably, the one to resurrect the main character is entirely optional. Most of the game post-Zeal, even the Black Omen, can be considered a sidequest, since you can face the final boss very early in the game. That said, the sidequests are helpful for leveling your characters and getting their best weapons so you stand a chance of beating said boss on your first playthrough. And at the very least, none of them feel particularly pointless.

The remake introduced the Lost Sanctum, two villages and two mountains full of Fetch Quests: Find an item, take it to the guy on top of the mountain, walk back down the mountain to the village. Now climb the mountain again to talk to the guy again to figure out what you need to fetch for him next. Get the item, climb to the top of the mountain, be told it's the wrong item, climb down the mountain. You spend as much time traveling through the same four or five screens as you do on the rest of the game's sidequests combined. At least the rewards are usually worth it.

The Boss Rush that begins the Final Boss battle against Lavos can be skipped by crashing into its outer shell with the Epoch. However, doing this destroys the Epoch and prevents you from going back, making it a Point of No Return.

After the Fall of Zeal, the battle against Magus on North Cape can be skipped. When the boss asks if you want to fight, replying "No" will have the party leader remark that it won't solve anything right now.

Robo makes use of it in order to restore the forests back in the Middle Ages. He stays behind with Fiona to labor at reconstruction, as the rest of the party simply hops in the Epoch and zooms forward to 1000 AD when Robo's work is complete and their friend is enshrined as a hero. He's in a somewhat dilapidated state, but not beyond Lucca's ability to repair him. He also uses his 400 year sojourn to try and reason out the puzzle of the Gates and their relation to Lavos, speculating the existence of The Entity being the party responsible for their existence rather than Lavos itself.

The Nu in the Lost Sanctum trains for 65,000,600 years after you beat him.

Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Death Peak looks like Christmas Town, especially once you use the Chrono Trigger. There is one path in particular which will give you a hard time.note It's a land bridge which deposits you farther back in the mountain path if you slip.

Snow Means Death: Snow or ashes are swirling around the world map of 2300 AD, but Death Peak is the only section in which snow is visible. It works on a thematic level, too: The party is journeying into limbo (or death itself) to retrieve Crono.

Snowball Lie: Tata uncovered the Hero's Badge and began wearing it around town. All of a sudden, everyone's hailing him as the Hero who will win the war against Magus and shoving him in front of the sick King who implores him to go find the Holy Sword of legend. Not helping matters is his father, who soaks up all the credit for "raising a hero". Tata finally gives him an earful once the truth is out.

The So-Called Coward: Frog. This is made clearer in the remake, when he tells Cyrus he doesn't fight back against his childhood tormentors because he's reluctant to hurt them.

Sociopathic Hero: Magus. The only thing he seems to value is his sister Schala, and he is willing to work with, exploit, manipulate, or destroy anything if it helps Schala.

In the original English translation, the Tent of Horrors' first minigame's first knight was mistakenly localized as "Vicks" instead of "Biggs", making the intended Star Wars reference more vague. Additionally, the French translation named Piett "Pietr".

Many of the high-end gear have a blanket anti-status effect... so of course the Final Boss has a move that removes the immunity.

Start X to Stop X: Lavos' presence is what brings magic into existence on the game's world, but when Spekkio gives the party the ability to use magic, for those who are capable of learning it, that is, they put it to good use against Lavos. In fact, Magus' attempt to summon Lavos was specifically so that he could destroy it.

Stealth-Based Mission: The Blackbird becomes this until you get at least one character re-equipped; being caught without a means to fight back sends you back to your cell. Having Ayla in the party, however, subverts this entirely, as she can always fight.

Suddenly Voiced: In the Memory Lane ending, Marle and Lucca rate several of the game's male characters based on who they think are studs and duds. When it comes time to rate Crono, he crashes the proceedings.

Suspicious Video Game Generosity: The save room in Guardia Prison is accompanied by an "owner's manual" detailing the weapons and weaknesses of a "Dragon Tank". Also, inspecting the Supervisor's unconscious body nearby yields a whopping ten Mid-Potions.

Zenan Bridge, once it's fixed, hits all of the symbolic marks: the bridge is a bottleneck through which Ozzie's troops attempt to invade Guardia; a flashback between Cyrus and Glenn takes place on the bridge, as Cyrus announces he's going to become a knight; lastly, King Guardian XXI leads a procession across the water during the game's ending.

The Dragon Tank is fought on the connecting bridge between Guardia Castle and the prison tower. When the tank explodes, the Chancellor rushes in to make repairs, but ends up on hanging for dear life when the bridge collapses:

Take Your Time: An interesting variation on this due to the time traveling nature of the plot. You can travel to several time periods both distantly before and distantly after Lavos's apocalypse, you can attack Lavos at nearly any point in the game after getting the Epoch, and one of the Gurus explicitly tells you to take as much time as you need to prepare for your confrontation with it. For once, time is not of the essence — but you only get one chance, so you'd better make it count.

At the very beginning of the game, Melchior is visiting the Millennial Fair and has a Silver Sword for sale. Unless you farm money for a long time, you won't be able to afford it until you've progressed through at least one more dungeon.

The first time you arrive at Medina Village, the shopkeepers sell weapons three tiers above what you'll currently be using, for 10 times the gold you'd expect. This is because the fiends of the village hate humans after losing a war 400 years ago. After you've changed history to make fiends no longer hate humans, the prices become more reasonable, but by then, the gear is outclassed.

Temporal Paradox: One briefly causes Marle to disappear early in the game. And, according to Chrono Cross, the heroes create one when they defeat Lavos. Outside of the storyline, abusing the past/future mechanics to do the same event multiple times (take an item, beat the Omen) is also a paradox, since the first instance is now no longer possible in linear time.

Theme Music Power-Up: It's a pretty consistent bet that whenever someone's theme plays, they're about to have a Moment of Awesome. Except when Lucca's theme plays, which means that everyone is about to have one.

Theme Naming: Ozzie, Slash, and Flea are named after rock stars in the English localization. In the Japanese version, they're named after condiments.

Third-Person Flashback: During the trial, all the flashbacks of what you did are in third-person because they were actually coming from somebody else's descriptions.

Time Travellers Are Spies: Due to Crono's outlandish clothes, the castle guards think he's a spy for the Fiendlord. And everyone thinks he's a provincial bumpkin due to not knowing when or where he is:

Where are you, you say? Even a half-wit should know this land for Guardia!

[...] Then might you show the good grace to stop wandering about pestering folk with moronic questions?

You don't know the great Sir Cyrus? From what depraved village do you hail?

Timey-Wimey Ball: Explored here. In essence, the article concludes that there are several points in the game where the established laws of time travel in the game's universe have to be bent or broken for events to proceed as they do.

Total Eclipse of the Plot: Following a lead from Gaspar, the party has the option of journey to the top of Death Peak with the Chrono Trigger to bring Crono back to life. At first, the egg shatters and does nothing. After a minute or two, the sun is eclipsed, and when the darkness evaporates, you're back in the Ocean Palace facing Lavos, now frozen in time.

Tragic Bromance: Frog and Cyrus were very close friends before Magus killing the latter. As result, Frog started to change his personality since he blamed himself for Cyrus' death.

Trailers Always Spoil: Zeal appears in the game's opening sequence, although it's still a surprise when your party winds up in the ice age.

Training Boss: Spekkio, whom you can battle over and over after you meet him. However, you won't get anything for it after the first victory against each of his forms.

Trauma Inn: All the inns are capable of completely healing they party.

Treacherous Checkpoint: The Abandoned Sewers is full of subterranean monsters who will attack the party if they make any sound. After avoiding various noise-making hazards, Crono and friends may gladly walk into a Save Point, which makes a characteristic "ding". It cause the monsters to "hear" it and rush out to attack. Once the monsters are defeated, however, it works as well as any other save point.

Flea's henchmonster, who exists only to cast MP Buster on you before the real one shows up.

The Golem Overlord counts, but not the other Golem-type bosses.

Tricked Out Time: This is done in order to bring Crono back from the dead with the use of his Doppel Doll and the Chrono Trigger.

Triumphant Reprise: A strange example in that the song itself isn't any different, just use differently. When you first travel to Antiquity, the ice-covered ground is without a BGM, while the floating kingdom of Zeal has a beautiful and mystical theme, symbolizing the divide between the people who live above and below. Much later, after Zeal is destroyed and the once-Enlightened Ones forced to live on the surface with the Earthbound ones, the theme is played almost continuously, symbolizing the newfound unity between the two peoples.

Turns Red: Some bosses use stronger counters when low on HP. Crono's shade uses Rend, which doubles the damage it deals, while the Dream Devourer goes from removing all the attacker's MP to confusing and damaging everyone.

Uncommon Time: "Sealed Door" starts in 5/4 and then goes to 6/8; "Battle with Magus" has segments that alternate between 5/8 and 7/8.

Underground Level: The Reptite Lair and the Giant's Claw. The latter turns out to be leading to the ruins of the Tyranno Lair.

Any time you need to escape from confinement, there will be stealth elements. However, in both of the escape attempts, you are completely free to bash your jailers' heads in.note Although you'll need Ayla during the escape of the Blackbird, as she is the only character who retains her weapon.

The Jetbike in 2300 A.D., though Johnny will only allow Crono to drive it.

Somehow, all of your party members are able to pilot the Epoch, including Ayla.

Universal Poison: Poison is used in much the same way as it is in the Final Fantasy series. The interesting thing is that Robo can be poisoned as well.

Un-person: The reason why Queen Zeal declared the banishment of the Earthbound Ones after they cannot perform magic. Only the Gurus and Schala don't agree with Zeal and treat the Earthbound Ones as equals.

Unsettling Gender Reveal: Flea, one of Magus' henchmen, is quite a bit offended when Frog introduces him as female. To make matters even more jarring, when asked about his/her gender:

Flea:Man or woman, it's all the same. Power is beauty, and I'm deliciously strong!

The player's party consists of an anthropomorphic frog, a self-aware humanoid robot, a cavewoman in a bikini-slash-cat costume, and — optionally — a world-threatening dictator who Looks Like Orlok. No one cares. Crono's mother has more to say on the odd ensemble of Crono's time-displaced sidekicks than the entire rest of the NPC cast, and even she doesn't seem too worried about them. This is especially evident with Magus, as while people will now suddenly know whatever name you've chosen to given him, they pay no mind to him, even when he's the one they're talking to.

It gets a bit ridiculous during the Hero's Grave sidequest where Frog talks with the ghost of Cyrus. Bring Magus along for that part and he won't even as much as comment on why the infamous leader of the fiends and known conqueror, not to mention his own killer, is tagging along with them. Magus himself just stands there like nothing's wrong and only reacts at the end by covering himself with his cape when the Masamune shines brightly as part of a power-up sequence.

During the Rainbow Shell sidequest, once you discover the shell, you need to get help from King Guardia XXI to move it. Have Magus leading your party, and when the King initially balks, Queen Leene will ask him to do it as a personal favor for Magus, the guy who nearly destroyed their entire kingdom.

The remake added the Lost Sanctum, the Dimensional Vortexes and a new English script. The DS version also has exclusive content like the Arena of the Ages, the Dojo, and a bestiary.

Urban Ruins: The Bad Future of is first seen when the heroes have to go through ruins populated with robots, mutants, and giant rats. There is a stretch of abandoned highway clear of debris used as a racetrack by the local gang of robot delinquents.

Urban Segregation: In 12,000 B.C., magic users live on the Floating Continent Zeal, while non-magic users live on the Earth. They both suffer the same fate when Zeal collapses into the sea.

Utopia Justifies the Means: Whether it's enslaving the less fortunate or siphoning energy out of the planet (or from other sources), no cost is too great.

The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Black Omen is a gigantic, black aircraft, but once it's raised in 12,000 B.C., peasants in later time periods are rather blasé about it, since it's been in the sky for hundreds of generations and no one sees anything unusual about it. Also, it's in no way required to fight the Big Bad, you can complete it three times in different time periods, and even entering it is completely optional.

Villain World: If you try to break into the Black Omen in 2300 AD, Queen Zeal will just chortle at you, saying that Lavos has already won.

Voodoo Shark: The remake gives an explanation for the deaths of the main cast alluded to in Chrono Cross and the rise of Porre as a military power a mere five years later. It was Dalton. Somehow, he managed to create an army that killed the same heroes who defeated him already when he had far more advanced technology and resources from his own era.

Wake-Up Call Boss: The Dragon Tank can be this during a first playthrough partially because it is the first boss that requires more of a strategy than just simply attacking it until you win.

Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: Toppling sorcerers, evil empresses, dinosaur hordes, robotic armies? We're on it! Marle standing up to her overprotective dad? Go hire somebody else. In fact, the problems of the present day are seemingly insurmountable for the main trio. Crono is a fugitive for the entire story until the Beyond Time ending, Lucca cannot reconcile hers and Taban's role in causing her mother's paralysis until Fiona's forest is restored, and Marle's home life is hopelessly dysfunctional, with the Chancellor egging the King on from behind the scenes, until the end of the Rainbow Shell subquest.

War Was Beginning: Time travel version: the war with Magus is a mere historical footnote in the present day. This makes for a rude awakening when your first time portal deposits you four centuries in the past, where war is still being waged.

Waterfall into the Abyss: The Kingdom of Zeal, a series of Floating Continents, of which the largest has two waterfalls coming off it. Oddly enough, walking around on the surface of 12,000 B.C. you won't find any torrential downpours falling out of nowhere.

Weirdness Search and Rescue: When the party first winds up at the End of Time, an old man, who's really Gaspar, gives a basic explanation of the time travel system and later keeps track of what you are supposed to do. Conveniently, this is the first time the party has a chance to time travel freely, rather than being pushed into the gates by outside events.

Whatever happened to Schala? Radical Dreamers was conceived to rectify this. Due to Masato Kato not being satisfied with it and the short amount of time it took to develop it, the Mind Screw that was Chrono Cross was created, with her playing and even larger role in it than in Radical Dreamers.

What happened to the Lost Sanctum and the Reptite survivors after 600 AD?

Dalton just kind of disappears in the original version of the game with no further mention of him after his final boss fight. The remake eventually has him come back in one of the Dimensional Vortexes in order to provide a bit of an explanation as to his eventual fate.

Wiper Start: Turns out Dalton added more than wings to the Epoch. Sadly, you never use the newly-installed lasers on anything else.

With Catlike Tread: A particular path in the Abandoned Sewers is covered in trash and stray cats which, if you step on them, will awaken angry monsters in the water. Touching the save point also triggers an attack.

World Building: There is a surprising amount of this nested into the ever-changing dialogue of every NPC character in the game. The arrival of Lavos in 65,000,000 BC is even foreshadowed by an NPC saying, " Red star in sky. See during daytime!" on the second time that you visit the era in question.

The World Is Just Awesome: In the Beyond Time ending, the credits scroll over the nighttime Moon Festival, rendered in gorgeous Mode 7. It gradually pans out to reveal the planet floating in space, this time unmarred by Lavos' eruption.

Worthy Opponent: In The Oath ending, when Frog confronts Magus alone, Magus reveals his view that nobody is worthy to rule the planet. Apart from himself and his opponent.

Writers Cannot Do Math: Maybe they can, but there's no good explanation why the Sun Stone is useless after 65,001,000 years, but useful after 65,002,300 years.

Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The original English script gave Frog an accent like this, even moreso than other characters in his era. Oddly enough, Frog talks normally in the flashback scenes to the time before his transformation. The Japanese version did not have this, and the remake, which featured a new translation, did not retain it. However, Frog still sounds more formal than he did in the Japanese version, like nearly everyone from the Middle Ages.

You Can't Go Home Again: Subverted. Crono, Marle, and Lucca are forced on a linear path from the moment the former two return to Guardia Castle until you arrive at the End of Time. From that moment on, you can go home again if you.

You ALL Look Familiar: Besides the hardware limitations in terms of character sprites, some of the main characters' official artwork strongly resemble Dragon Ball characters. This makes sense considering Akira Toriyama provided the character designs for both works.

Your Size May Vary: When you fight Lavos, he takes up about half the screen and seems to be about as large as a big house, certainly small enough to fit inside the Mammon Machine room at the Ocean Palace. However, his appearance in the Day of Lavos recording and the cutscene prior to his fight display a city-sized Lavos splitting the earth. He left a small-continent sized crater after crashing on earth in Prehistory. The upgraded Epoch, which is almost as large as Lavos's battle sprite. may be crash landed through its shell inside of him. Its insides sprawl at least over four screen heights, certainly larger than Leene's Square. And his first of two final forms is also about as large as he is on the outside.

Zero-Effort Boss: The Golem Overlord doesn't even attack. It just counts down from 5 to 1, at which point it does nothing. It complains about being afraid of heights, so if the player doesn't attack, it eventually runs away. You can't really lose, but if you don't beat the boss before it runs, you miss out on some free EXP.

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